As investigators dig into Florida school shooting suspect Nikolas Cruz’s background, more and more instances have emerged in which state and federal officials apparently missed opportunities to stop his runaway obsession to, as the alleged killer purportedly stated in a 6-month-old comment on a YouTube video, “be a professional school shooter.”

“This kid, in his own way, was screaming out in every way the mind knows how to scream out. He did everything, including saying, ‘I want to go and shoot people in school,'” Cruz’s attorney Howard Finkelstein told ABC News. “I don’t know what you can do more than that to get somebody’s attention.”

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Among the growing list of warning signs either detailed by public statements from officials or public records are:

— An admission by the FBI that it was given two tips on Cruz’s potential for violence, including the September comment on the YouTube video, which the FBI said it investigated but could not verify who posted it. The bureau also said on Friday that a Jan. 5 tip that came across its Public Access Line, warning that Cruz might be planning a “school shooting” and detailing his guns, was not passed on to its Miami field office and was never investigated.

— A report in August 2016 by the Florida Department of Children and Family that shows the agency investigated a Snapchat post showing Cruz cutting his arms and was told by Cruz that he “plans to go out and buy a gun.” The agency determined Cruz “to be stable enough not to be hospitalized,” according to the DCF report obtained by The Associated Press.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

— Investigators dissecting Cruz’s social media accounts since the mass shooting have found posts that Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel described to ABC News as “very, very disturbing.”

— Broward County School District officials saying Cruz was reprimanded regularly while a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and eventually expelled. Jim Gard, a math teacher at the school, told ABC News he believes Cruz had been banned from bringing a backpack to school when he was a student there.

— At least 20 calls for service in the last few years regarding Cruz for a variety of disturbance complaints, including fighting with his mother, who died in November after contracting pneumonia, authorities said. In a police report from Sept. 28, 2016, a therapist who went on one of the calls cleared Cruz, concluding he was “no threat to anyone or himself.”

— One of Cruz’s classmates told ABC News that about a year ago, Cruz told him, “I swear to God I’ll shoot up this school.” But the student did not report the threat to school officials after Cruz apologized for making it, the student said.

Rhona Wise/AFP/Getty Images

During a gun control rally in Fort Lauderdale on Saturday, Emma Gonzalez, a student at Stoneman Douglas, told a crowd that students had reported Cruz numerous times for his behavior.

“We did, time and time again since he was in middle school,” Emma said. “It was no surprise to anyone who knew him to hear he was the shooter.”

Robert Runcie, the Broward County School District superintendent, declined to comment on Cruz specifically, but told ABC News in an interview on Sunday, that the district follows up on all complaints about students.

“They are disciplined, they are reviewed,” Runcie said. “In schools, we provide counseling and support to the greatest extent possible.

“But there are limitations for what we can do at a legal standpoint right now,” Runcie said. “If a student has serious issues, we collaborate when appropriate with law enforcement agencies on when to take action. But the big challenge, I believe, is that we have various agencies, including the school system, that are working really hard but in silos.”

Runcie said there isn’t a system available in which the schools, law enforcement, social service agencies and mental health agencies share information that could possibly connect the dots about a particular student.

“We’re gonna certainly review this and all of us in our respective areas are gonna figure out how we can improve on what we are doing,” Runcie said. “But at the end of the day, there’s got to be legislation, there has to be some type of infrastructure built so that we’re all working smarter instead of just harder in our own silos, if you will.”

Israel told ABC News that he’s ordered an investigation into all 20 calls regarding Cruz to “look at what our deputies did, and if our deputies acted inappropriately, or missed and didn’t do what our leaders think they should’ve done.”

But Israel said his deputies often find their “hands are tied” by laws. He said the state’s Baker Act — which gives law enforcement the ability to involuntarily take someone suffering from mental illness to a facility to be examined if they are an immediate threat to themselves or others — needs to be expanded.

“We have to be able to when we read disturbing texts, when somebody says ‘I want to be a school killer’… we need the ability to involuntarily Baker Act someone for what we think they might do,” Israel said. “That has to be done in this day and age.”

But Israel said nothing will change unless Congress acts to strengthen gun laws to keep weapons out of the hands of people with a history of mental illness.

“They deserve and we deserve to have them confined, and when they’re examined and somebody says they’re ready to be released, they should be released and they shouldn’t be able to come over with an order and have us give them their handguns,” Israel said.

“They’re not better three or seven days later,” he said. “They’re not better, they’re not healed. We don’t know what’s gonna happen. We need to keep their guns.”

“I’d like everyone to know about my husband,” she said in an interview with Znak, a Russian news site. “And not only about my husband, but about all the boys who died there so stupidly. Where were they sent to, and why? They didn’t even have protection, they were like pigs sent to slaughter!”

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President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump arriving for a state dinner last November with China’s President Xi Jinping and China’s first lady Peng Liyuan in Beijing.

 (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst, File)

President Donald Trump has boasted repeatedly about his big and powerful “nuclear button” — but according to a new report, it almost got away from him last year in China.

According to Axios, five sources said that on Nov. 9, during Trump’s visit to Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, Chief of Staff John Kelly and a U.S. Secret Service agent had a “skirmish” with Chinese security officials over the so-called nuclear “football,” which helps set a nuclear strike order in motion.

When the U.S. military aide carrying the football entered the Great Hall, Axios reported, Chinese security officials blocked his entry.

Kelly, in the adjoining room, was told, and the former United States Marine Corps general rushed over and told U.S. officials to keep walking, according to Axios.

“We’re moving in,” Kelly said — and his team all started moving.

A Chinese security official then grabbed Kelly, and Kelly shoved the man’s hand off of his body, according to Axios. Then a U.S. Secret Service agent grabbed that Chinese security official, and tackled him to the ground.

Axios reported that at no point did the Chinese have the nuclear football in their possession or even touch the briefcase.

The process for launching a nuclear strike is secret and complex. The nuclear football is carried by a rotating group of military officers everywhere the president goes and is equipped with communication tools and a book with prepared war plans.

If the president were to order a strike, he would identify himself to military officials at the Pentagon with codes unique to him. Those codes are recorded on a card known as the “biscuit” that is carried by the president at all times. He then would transmit the launch order to the Pentagon and Strategic Command.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

While some homes and businesses near the quake’s epicenter were damaged, there were no reports of deaths, officials said. About 200 miles away in Mexico City, where an earthquake early warning system sent hundreds of thousands of people fleeing into the streets for safety Friday, only minor damage was reported.

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Residents of the Condesa and Roma neighborhoods of Mexico City, which suffered some of the worst damage in September, ran out into the streets in panic, looking up at the buildings as the earthquake warning system went off. Once in the streets, they searched for signs of damage to their buildings.

Last September’s seismic eruption has left people frightened at the slightest tremor, and the tears in the faces of those who endured the last major quake were easy to spot on the streets.

Many could be heard repeating the words “Oh God, not again.”

Video footage from inside the Mexico City newsroom of a daily newspaper, Milenio, showed employees ducking underneath desks as light fixtures swung wildly.

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The initial 7.2-magnitude shock was followed 57 minutes later by a magnitude-5.8 aftershock.

The epicenter of Friday’s earthquake was between those of a magnitude-8.2 quake on Sept. 8 and the 7.1-magnitude quake on Sept. 19. But from a geological standpoint, all three occurred in the same general area — a so-called subduction zone, where one piece of the earth’s crust, in this case the Cocos Plate, is slowly sliding under another, the North American.

Like other subduction zones around the Pacific and elsewhere, this region is the source of many earthquakes, some of them very strong and destructive. The movement of the two plates relative to each other is very slow — about two to three inches a year — but it causes stresses to build, either at the boundary between the two plates or, as was the case with the September quakes, within one of them. At some point the stresses become too much and the rock formations slip, releasing energy as an earthquake.

Shortly after Friday’s quake, the United States Geological Survey released a brief initial analysis, saying that it occurred “on or near” the boundary between the two plates, and about 55 miles north of the Middle America Trench, where the Cocos begins its slide beneath the North America plate.

In addition to local destruction, strong Mexican earthquakes often cause damage in Mexico City — even if, as in this case, the capital is miles away. Mexico City was built on an ancient lake bed, and the sediments of sand and clay amplify the seismic waves as they arrive from the epicenter.

Depending on the amount of energy released, the depth of the epicenter and its distance from Mexico City, the seismic waves from a quake can affect some buildings in the capital more than others. In the Sept. 19 quake, mostly shorter buildings were knocked down. But in a 1985 quake that killed 10,000 people, most of the buildings that were severely damaged or destroyed were six to 16 stories tall.

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The bureau, which was already under considerable political pressure because of its investigation into President Trump, faced calls for even more scrutiny following the massacre.

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Mr. Scott said that Christopher A. Wray, the director of the F.B.I., should step down and that the bureau’s failure to act on the tip about Mr. Cruz was “unacceptable.” “Seventeen innocent people are dead and acknowledging a mistake isn’t going to cut it,” Mr. Scott said in a statement. “The F.B.I. Director needs to resign.”

In an unusually sharp public rebuke of his own agents, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said Friday that the missed warnings had “tragic consequences” and that “the F.B.I. in conjunction with our state and local partners must act flawlessly to prevent all attacks. This is imperative, and we must do better.”

Robert F. Lasky, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I. field office in Miami, said the agency advised the victims’ parents about the misstep in a conference call on Friday.

“We will be looking into where and how the protocol broke down,” he said.

Read more here.

‘How does this happen?’ An outpouring of grief as funerals begin.

Under clear blue skies on a Friday morning, the first funeral for victims killed in the Florida high school mass shooting was held.

Alyssa Miriam Alhadeff, 14, was remembered for her joy and kindness, traits that had attracted a wide circle of friends. Hundreds of mourners filled the Star of David Funeral Chapel in North Lauderdale, spilling outside.

Among the youngest victims, Alyssa, an honor student and a player for the Parkland soccer club, was buried in the Garden of Aaron at Star of David Memorial Gardens.

Her mother, Lori Alhadeff, urged Alyssa’s friends to stay in touch, but also let their future success be her daughter’s legacy. “Live, breathe for Alyssa,” she said.

At a synagogue just a mile from where she had been gunned down two days before, Meadow Pollack, 18, lay in a plain wooden coffin, closed in accordance with Jewish tradition.

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Before her were hundreds of mourners, seated in row upon row and crowding every wall and corner: her cousins, her classmates, the governor and so many others. She is survived by many family members, including her brothers and her grandmother Evelyn.

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Her father stood in a black suit before the crowd.

“How does this happen to my beautiful, smart, loving daughter?” Mr. Pollack said. “She is everything. If we could learn one thing from this tragedy, it’s that our everythings are not safe when we send them to school.”

The room heaved with sobbing teenagers, and mourners wheeled out Ms. Pollack’s coffin, to be buried in a nearby cemetery.

‘It’s sad something like that could happen,’ the president said in Florida.

Accompanied by John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, and Senator Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, the Trumps arrived Friday evening at a hospital in Pompano Beach that took in eight of the shooting victims.

The president and Mrs. Trump, visited the Broward Health North Hospital “to pay their respects and thank the medical professionals for their life-saving assistance,” according to a statement related by a White House spokeswoman on Friday evening.

When asked if he met with victims, President Trump said: “Yes, I did. I did indeed.”

“It’s sad something like that could happen,” he said.

Mr. Trump did not respond when he was asked if gun laws needed to be changed. He then walked into another room.

The Trumps, according to the statement, were also scheduled to travel to the Broward County Sheriff’s office to meet with “the law enforcement officials whose bravery helped save lives.”

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Schools across the nation are on edge.

On Friday, a number of schools had canceled classes and other activities after receiving unsubstantiated threats.

The authorities were still investigating reports of shots fired on Friday morning at Highline College, about half an hour’s drive south of Seattle, said Capt. Kyle Ohashi, a spokesman for the Puget Sound Regional Fire Authority. No physical evidence of a weapons discharge — including shell casings or damage to any structure — had been found, he said. The school said in a statement on Facebook that the situation was cleared about three hours after a lockdown began. Several other agencies, including the federal Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, had also responded.

The Gilchrist County School District in Florida shuttered its schools after receiving an email threat, and the Nutley Public School System in New Jersey also said it would be closed because of a security threat. A high school in Colorado Springs canceled a pep rally.

A school district in Redwater, Tex. decided to close after the superintendent said it received “a rumor about a possible shooter.” And a school in Massachusetts announced it would deploy more police officers and do random security checks throughout the day because of a threatening post on social media.

Schools also wrestled with how to proceed with lockdown drills, which have become as routine as fire drills as students prepare for the possibility of a shooting. Some schools opt to make the drills feel partially authentic — an approach several schools backed off from this week out of fear they would stir already heightened anxieties.

At Dysart High School in El Mirage, Ariz., the principal took extra steps to make sure students knew its previously scheduled drill on Thursday was, in fact, just a drill. The reminder was included in the morning announcements, and she reiterated it on the public address system several times throughout the day, said Zachery Fountain, a district spokesman.

Eureka High School in California postponed its drill that had been scheduled for Thursday, partly because officials were concerned about the mental state of students, said Fred Van Vleck, the district superintendent. Typically, the school doesn’t announce that the lockdown is a drill, telling students only that there could be a drill within a one-week window, he said.

“We determined it was best to allow the teachers the time in the classroom to have the conversations with students, rather than running them through drills at this point,” he said.

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McNeil High School in Austin, Tex., went ahead with its lockdown drill on Friday, but only after an unusual level of communication.

“Normally we would not announce drills to students and parents so the drill is more authentic, however I felt it important to notify our families in advance so as not to cause any fear or panic,” the school’s principal, Courtney Acosta, wrote in an email to parents, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

As a boy, her grandfather survived a mass shooting by hiding in a closet. Now she was doing the same.

During the horror at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High, Carly Novell, a 17-year-old senior who is an editor for the school’s quarterly magazine, The Eagle Eye, hid in a closet and thought about an awful family tragedy from before she was born. Her mother had told her about how her grandfather had survived a mass shooting in 1949 in Camden, N.J. His family had not made it.

“My grandfather was 12, and his grandma and his mom and dad were killed while he hid in a closet,” Ms. Novell said. “They heard gunshots on the street, so my great-grandma told my grandpa to hide in the closet, so he was safe. But he didn’t have a family after that.”

Interviewed on Thursday, she said: “I was thinking of him while I was in the closet. I was wondering what he felt like while he was there. My mom has told me he was in shock after it, too — that he didn’t remember how he got to the police station, or anything like that. I didn’t forget anything, but I was in shock and I didn’t understand what was going on.”

Mr. Cruz made his first court appearance.

In an orange jumpsuit and shackled around his hands, feet and waist, Mr. Cruz was asked if he understood the circumstances of his appearance in court. “Yes, ma’am,” he whispered.

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“He’s sad. He’s mournful,” his public defender, Melisa McNeill, said afterward. “He is fully aware of what is going on, and he’s just a broken human being.”

Mr. Weekes, the chief assistant public defender, said lawyers were still trying to piece together the details of Mr. Cruz’s life. He has a “significant” history of mental illness, according to Mr. Weekes, and may be autistic or have a learning disability.

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But Mr. Weekes was not ready to say whether he would pursue a mental health defense.

Howard Finkelstein, the chief public defender in Broward County, said the case would present a difficult question: Should society execute mentally ill people?

“There’s no question of whether he will be convicted of capital murder 17 times,” he said. “When we let one of our children fall off grid, when they are screaming for help in every way, do we have the right to kill them when we could have stopped it?”

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Special Counsel Robert Mueller has dropped another Friday blockbuster with his sweeping indictment of three organisations and 13 Russian nationals for meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.

For the first time the special counsel’s team has taken dead aim at its central mandate in the investigation and laid bare the scope of what it alleges was a multi-million-dollar Russian operation to sow discord in American politics as far back as 2014.

Here’s a look at some of the key passages of the 37-page indictment and what they mean.

No knowledge, no collusion

“Some defendants, posing as US persons and without revealing their Russian association, communicated with unwitting individuals associated with the Trump campaign and with other political activists to seek to co-ordinate political activities.“

This is the key passage for the White House’s effort to downplay the threat this indictment poses to Donald Trump and his presidency.

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Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, in announcing the indictments, added that there was “no allegation in this indictment that any American had knowledge” of Russian activity.

Critics will highlight the “in this indictment” portion of that statement. While Mr Mueller’s document asserts no Trump-connected individuals knew they were dealing with Russians, this isn’t the end of the investigation.

Skip Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump

Russia started their anti-US campaign in 2014, long before I announced that I would run for President. The results of the election were not impacted. The Trump campaign did nothing wrong – no collusion!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 16, 2018

End of Twitter post by @realDonaldTrump

The president, via Twitter and in a White House statement, insists this is proof that there was no collusion. It’s better to say that there’s no collusion alleged here. That certainly bolsters the White House’s principal argument, but it doesn’t cover any possible indictments to come. What this indictment, if it is substantiated, does do is devastate Mr Trump’s past insistence that allegations of Russian meddling were a hoax.

• The Trump-Russia saga in 200 words
• Full text of the Russia indictment

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It wasn’t just Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton

“They engaged in operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.“

The indictment paints a picture of a multi-year, multi-prong effort to “sow discord” in the US political process dating back to 2014, before Mr Trump entered the presidential race.

The Russians, according to Mr Mueller’s team, familiarised themselves with the US political process and then took action to support – or undermine – a variety of political candidates. They allegedly attacked several of Mr Trump’s rivals in the Republican primary and backed Bernie Sanders, who mounted a populist challenge to Mrs Clinton for the Democratic nomination.

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They also used social media, investigators say, to rally support for Green Party candidate Jill Stein in the general election, including an Instagram account that told black liberal activists to “choose peace and vote for Jill Stein” and that it wasn’t “a wasted vote”.

In several key Mid-western states, the number of Stein votes was greater than Mr Trump’s margin of victory over Mrs Clinton.

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A cloak and dagger operation

“Krylova and Bogacheva, together with other Defendants and co-conspirators, planned travel itineraries, purchased equipment (such as cameras, SIM cards and drop phones) and discussed security measures (including “evacuation scenarios”) for Defendants who travelled to the United States.“

One of the more breathtaking revelations of the indictment was that Russian attempts to influence the US presidential election went well beyond “virtual” efforts on social media. It included actual Russian nationals entering the US under false pretences and posing as Americans to conduct clandestine activities, according to the document.

It’s the kind of espionage activity that harkens back to the Cold War and an indication of the seriousness and sophistication behind the Russian efforts.

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Crimes were committed

“Defendants, together with others known and unknown to the grand jury, knowingly and intentionally conspired to defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing and defeating the lawful functions of the Federal Election Commission, the US Department of Justice and the US Department of State in administering federal requirements for disclosure of foreign involvement in certain domestic activities.“

There had been a line of argument from some Donald Trump supporters that Russian meddling efforts, even if proven, wouldn’t constitute a criminal offence and a connection between Russia and the Trump campaign, if established, wouldn’t be a fatal blow.

• The tactics of a Russian troll farm
• Trump Russia affair: Key questions answered
• Who’s who in Russia scandal?

Mr Mueller’s indictment lays out a number of ways in which what Russia is alleged to have done constitutes actual violations of criminal statutes – including wire fraud, identity theft and violations of election law.

It seems unlikely in the extreme that any of the individuals named in this indictment will end up facing any trial in the US. The Russian government has already said that the allegations are “absurd”. That is probably not the point. This all matters because it establishes that any Americans who had knowledge of the Russian activity participated in a criminal endeavour and consequently could be vulnerable to prosecution.

No Americans have been named, of course, the investigation isn’t over yet.

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A targeted effort

“Defendants and their co-conspirators, posing as US persons, communicated with a real US person affiliated with a Texas-based grassroots organisation. Defendants and their co-conspirators learned from the real US person that they should focus their activities on “purple states like Colorado, Virginia Florida.”

This is another of the more remarkable revelations of the extent to which Russian nationals tried to gather information about US electoral process and strategy as part of their alleged attempts to influence the US presidential race.

They contacted actual US political experts, who directed them to target key states in the Electoral College – including Virginia, Colorado and Florida.

It appears, from the indictment, that the Russians paid particular attention to Florida, which Mr Trump would eventually win by a 1.2% margin (Mrs Clinton carried the other two states mentioned).

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Real people, real rallies

“Defendants and their co-conspirators updated an internal organization list of over 100 real US persons contacted through organization-controlled false US persona accounts and tracked to monitor recruitment efforts and requests.“

Up until now, much of the attention on Russian election meddling had been focused on their social media efforts – fake Twitter accounts, Facebook adverts and the like. The indictment, however, details much more.

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Hundreds of Americans were allegedly contacted and recruited to support pro-Trump efforts. Individuals were paid to attend Trump events, including one who went to several dressed like Mrs Clinton in prison garb, investigators say. They even allegedly ordered the construction of a mock cage for the Clinton impersonator that could be transported on the back of a flatbed truck.

Rallies themselves were organised and promoted. A Florida-based grassroots activist was allegedly wired money to purchase materials for a Miami event.

All in all, Russian operatives were effectively engaging in – and funding – traditional on-the-ground campaign activities. Mr Trump has asserted that the “results of the election were not impacted”.

While it’s impossible to tell whether Russia’s alleged multi-million-dollar effort tipped the balance to the Republican, it’s much more difficult to say it had no effect whatsoever.

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It didn’t end on election day

“After the election of Donald Trump in or around November 2016, Defendants and their co-conspirators used false US personas to organise and co-ordinate US political rallies in support of then president-elect Trump, while simultaneously using other false U.S. personas to organise and co-ordinate US political rallies protesting the results of the 2016 US presidential election.“

If the real point of the alleged Russian meddling was to “sow discord” in the US political system, those efforts wouldn’t conclude upon Mr Trump’s election – and, according to the indictment, they didn’t.

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In the days after the election, Russians were playing both sides against each other – encouraging rallies both for and against Mr Trump.

The president’s supporters have cited this as evidence that the Russians were as interested in undermining their man as much as helping him – although that’s undermined by actual communications Mr Mueller cites in the indictment, in which “specialists” were told the organisation supported Mr Trump and Mr Sanders.

What the post-election rallies demonstrate, however, is that the Russian efforts haven’t ended. US intelligence officials, in testimony before Congress earlier this week said essentially the same thing – that the Russians, undeterred, will seek to continue to foment chaos in the days ahead, including during the 2018 US congressional midterm elections.

The question, then, is what the US does – or does not do – to prepare and respond.